Going Under
by hummer246
Summary: Story Four in the iPod Series... Stephanie answers the phone...


The iPod Series:

Say Something

Something I Can Never Have

Is Your Love Strong Enough

Going Under

A/N 1: Don't own but wish I did..

A/N 2: As always to my Betas! MWAH! Big Kisses!

_Going Under by Evanescence_

_Now I will tell you what I've done for you  
Fifty thousand tears I've cried  
Screaming, deceiving and bleeding for you  
And you still won't hear me, going under_

Don't want your hand this time, I'll save myself  
Maybe I'll wake up for once  
Not tormented daily, defeated by you  
Just when I thought, I reached the bottom

I dive again, I'm going under  
Drowning in you, I'm falling forever  
I've got to break through, I'm going under

Blurring and stirring the truth and the lies  
So I don't know what's real and what's not  
So I don't know what's real and what's not  
Always confusing the thoughts in my head

So I can't trust myself anymore  
I dive again, I'm going under  
Drowning in you, I'm falling forever  
I've got to break through, I'm

So go on and scream  
Scream at me, I'm so far away  
I won't be broken again  
I've got to breathe, I can't keep going under

I dive again, I'm going under  
Drowning in you, I'm falling forever  
I've got to break through, I'm going under  
Going under, I'm going under

_**Previously in "Is Your Love Strong Enough?"**_

"_**Speak."**_

"Hey, Babe."

"Ranger?"

Stephanie took the phone away from her ear and looked at it. Her emotions were overwhelming her and she had to put a stop to that immediately. Every time she talked to Ranger he overwhelmed her; no matter what they were doing. Only now she couldn't afford what he brought to her. His 'no price' saying was utter bullshit. There was always a price, and it seemed it she was the one always paying it. Only not anymore. She had learned over the past year how to compartmentalize her feelings. How to not show her emotions every second of every day.

Stephanie learned there was a high cost to loving someone who might love you in their own way. And she learned that Ranger's way was painful and heart wrenching. It made her feel used and in some ways a whore. It always seemed so easy for him to walk away from her. He would be kissing the breath from her body one second and the next be turning around and leaving her standing there with that stupid love-sick look on her face. To her, everything seemed so easy for Ranger.

So she learned by example to let the comments slide away from her, to not listen to the words that could hurt her, but most importantly to know that whatever fucked up thing that they had going was not real. She should not listen to what Ranger said to her because none of it meant anything to him; _she_ didn't mean anything to him, except as a distraction.

"I'll call you back." Stephanie said, and then hung up.

On Ranger.

She took a deep breath and turned to face her crew at their table. She sat back down with her blank, emotionless face and when the waitress came around, ordered a double Johnny Walker Red neat.

No one at the table could see that her gut was churning, that she really wasn't breathing properly, or that every now and then she could feel the hairs on her arms stand at attention from just thinking about Ranger. About his hands on her skin, his lips on hers and his hard muscular body pressing her into a wall or her apartment door or his truck.

No one could see that the one person on the planet who had crushed her and made her feel like she was nothing, that she was worth nothing, had just been on her phone talking to her for the first time in a month. She let out a little puff of breath as she went to take a sip of her drink. He never called her once while he was in Boston. She just wasn't important enough to him to call and talk to, she guessed.

Stephanie looked down at her glass of whiskey and realized how utterly tired she was. She was so tired. She couldn't help thinking maybe it would be better to just cut ties with Ranger all together. Yes, she still thought about him-them-maybe not every second during the day, but by the time she went to sleep at night she could honestly say that she had spent her day with Ranger on her mind.

Maybe she should treat Ranger like she was an addict and just cut him off cold-turkey. What she wanted from him was too far into the realm of Cinderella/Fantasy happily-ever-after, and Stephanie had learned a long time ago that she just wasn't one of the girls who got their happily-ever-afters.

Stephanie was the girl who got cheated on, lied to, pushed into things, controlled, stepped on, and used.

She wasn't the girl who got the loving looks, the calls in the middle of night because they needed to hear her voice before they went to sleep, or even a dinner at a nice restaurant. She was the girl who got pizza and beer in front of the tv, got fussed at and complained about at by her parents, or got all dressed up like a slut to lure some sicko jail-bird out of a bar.

Stephanie said goodnight and threw down a fifty for her share of the drinks and tip and grabbed a taxi back to her no-tell motel. She stared at her phone the whole way, trying to decide if she would call him back tonight or put him off like all the times he had done the same to her. She hit contacts and looked up his number and pressed call; no more denial land for her. It rang once when he answered with his customary "Yo"

"Hello Ranger, what can I do for you?" Stephanie asked as she handed the cabbie a twenty and walked to her temporary apartment.

"What can you do for me? Is that some kinda joke, Babe?"

"No Ranger. What can I do for you? Why are you calling me?"

Her voice as well and her expression was blank, so no matter what Ranger said to her it wouldn't touch what was left of her soul. Stephanie knew she only had so much left of herself and she couldn't let him have any more than he already did. There was a cost that was going to have to be paid for this conversation soon and she didn't want to pay any more than she had to.

"Why don't you start by telling me why you moved across the country without telling me?"

"Why would I tell you? I'm not your wife, your girlfriend, or your family. I'm the girl that you kiss and flirt with when you are in the mood and nothing the rest of the time. So why would I inform you of my move?"

She thought she heard something but dismissed it as static on the line as she took a quiet breath.

"Ranger, I have to go and I would appreciate it if you wouldn't call me for a while. Let me call you when I'm ready to talk to you, all right?"

"What are you saying, Babe? That you can't talk to me?"

"I gave you almost a year to figure out what you wanted from me, and it seems pretty obvious we want different things, so I think it would be better if maybe we just didn't talk for a while."

"Babe, I love you."

"Yeah, I know, Ranger, in your own way. But your way makes me feel… You know what, never mind, it doesn't matter. I love you Ranger, but I have to stop now. I have to learn not to love you anymore. I can't keep doing this to myself." She took a shaking breath. "Ranger, I hope that you find someone who you can love with your whole heart. I hope that you find someone that you can't live without for even a moment. I wish with everything I am that you find her and she makes you so happy you don't know how you lived without her before you met her. I wish for you every good thing, I truly do. Goodbye, Ranger."

Stephanie hit end and wished that she had tears to shed. That she could cry her pain out. She took a deep breath and gently laid the phone on the bed, grabbed her shower bag and went into the old stained bathroom. She cut the shower on hot and let the water heat up while she got everything ready.

The hand towel was folded precisely and laid out flat. Toothbrush, toothpaste, hair brush, face cleanser wipes were next, all at precise angles to each other. Everything in its place, in its order. She climbed over the tub and let the scalding water turn her skin red. She washed her face, hair, and body in that order. She shaved under her arms and legs last like always.

Once everything was done and smooth, she took the razor blade out of her old-fashioned razor and pressed the sharp-side into her inner thigh, making a small shallow cut. Once she could see the blood begin to well up, she made the same size slice just below the now bleeding cut.

As always two to the right first, then two on the left, half an inch long. Not too deep, not too shallow, just right to let her feel the pain of each slice of steel through her skin.

It seems Stephanie Plum had finally learned the secret to hiding away her feelings from the world and how to safely release them. Too bad she couldn't feel the tears falling down her face with each slice of the blade.


End file.
